A regular reader of this blog who on occasion kindly shares online articles with me recently sent me the link to a report in The Guardian.
It is about the remarkable six hundred year old Great Barn at Harmondsworth in Middlesex and about concerns for its structure and, indeed, long-term survival should the dreadful proposal for a third runway at Heathrow go ahead. The barn and the historic parish church lie very close to the proposed new perimeter of the expanded airport and the effect of vibrations on a timber structure like the barn could be very serious, if not actually, catastrophic.
Image: English Heritage
The article can be read at Heathrow expansion ‘is threat to England’s largest surviving medieval barn’
Wikipedia has an entry about the barn and its history at Harmondsworth Great Barn and one about the village which can be seen at Harmondsworth
There is a much more detailed online account of the barn and its history, drawing upon the archives of Winchester College. This gives much about the building of the barn from the initial felling of the timber through to details of the ironwork for the doors in the years of its construction in 1425-27. It also includes descriptions of how it was used by those working for the College, such as threshing the grain with a flail, together with a fine selection of illustrations, all of which is accessible at Harmondsworth Great Barn
The complex timber construction of the Great Barn
Image:astonrowant.wordpress.com
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